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Preparing your child for school

When children are admitted to school they will be at different stages of development and there may be differences between them. A teacher will begin work with each individual from the stage he or she has reached. These are some of the things parents could give their attention to in the pre-school months.

Does your child:-

• mix well with others

• go to the toilet by him/herself and wash his/her hands afterwards

• use a knife and fork at meal times and drink water

• hold a pencil correctly

• use scissors (with pointed ends)

• make an attempt to dress and undress

• put his/her shoes on

• blow and wipe his/her nose

• tidy his/her things away

Helping at home

Firstly, encourage your child as much as possible. Let him/her join the library, buy books and try to assist him/her in making a suitable choice of books. Read to your child yourself. Get your child to read to you – tell him/her what a word says if he/she cannot read it. Let your child see you reading for pleasure. We want children to enjoy reading not look upon it as a chore that has to be done. We believe it is important that home and school should ‘work together’ for the benefit of the child and are often asked, “How can I help my child at home?”

Give your child plenty of opportunities for writing. Encourage the writing of ‘thank-you’ letters; write to friends and relatives and make his/her own books of stories. Explain new words and the meaning of words that he/she uses.

Numeracy work can be improved by helping your child to think about numbers and quantities in real life. Many games (cards, dominoes, darts and monopoly) require accurate counting. Let him/her help with shopping, using money and cooking, weighing and measuring. If you want to encourage your child’s work generally, allow him/her to ask questions and show him/her where he/she can find answers for himself/herself.

Take your child on visits to places of interests and discuss with him/her what her/she has seen. There are many places of interest near the school. Encourage your child to talk about his/her work at school, and if possible, do some follow up work together.

When your child is given homework, be supportive but please do not do it for him/her. Give your child the opportunity to draw, paint pictures and make models at home (despite the mess) and give him/her the benefit of any of your own practical skills.

Encourage your child to respect other people and property. We do our best at school to promote good manners and consideration for others.

The most important thing is your attitude to your child’s work. If you show that you are willing to take regular interest in what your child is doing and praise what he/she does rather than point out his/her shortcomings, this will build up his/her self-confidence and lead to improvement.

Discipline

We encourage children to adopt positive social and moral values and attitudes, eg to be helpful, kind, polite, calm, compassionate, curious, reasoning and hardworking. However, children do make mistakes which need correction. For minor misdemeanors a teacher’s disapproval is often sufficient for most children. More serious behaviour may be punished by a loss of privilege. This would result in a child, for example, missing a golden time session. For persistent bad behaviour the parents of the child concerned would be contacted and a meeting arranged to take place at school to decide upon measures to prevent future misconduct.The acquisition of correct values and attitudes is extremely important and every opportunity is taken to promote good social and moral behaviour. Self-discipline is essential if children are to relate to others successfully and have the right attitude to learning.